Evolution of Sound: Smooth Sailing

 We put out our summer single "Smooth Sailing" on July 1st, and have been blessed with many radio plays around Canada, but especially here at home in Vancouver. Thanks to CFRO and CBC for the love! 

 

Smooth Sailing is definitive Combine the Victorious sound. Blending Fleetwood Mac with Sade over a Sting inspired chord progression but somehow ends up sounding even more like us.

Daniel Clement (guitarist) and I became friends in Junior High in White Rock, BC.  Back in 1981 we started rehearsing our band Idle Minx in his family's garage. We know each other quite well and musically even better. The old records we shared as teenagers are the shorthand between us that has become the modern sound of Combine the Victorious. 

And with this song, as with so many of our songs, this one was born from another Isabelle Dunlop chorus hook. As soon as she sang that we all knew we had a good song on the line. 

Dan's guitar work on this one is lovely. The chorus guitar part was tracked six times! Each time on a different instrument. A six string, a twelve string, a six string acoustic, and 12 string acoustic and then additional strums just to make it hover a little more.  The chorus harmonies were a lot of fun too. Greg Hanberry (congas, vocals) added his harmony to the stack Dan, Isabelle and I had recorded and that wonderful full chord of voices turned lush. 

Isabelle had written a brilliant chorus but it took a bit of time to find the lyric of the verses. The idea to sing about different cities came to me on a bike ride to the studio. I blurted out a quick voice meme so I wouldn't lose it and then once we tried it in rehearsal it seemed to work, thus the Pacific adventure idea was born. It evolved from there.

Greg's congas are especially good on Smooth Sailing He nicely syncopates between the sparse drum machine beat and brought the good warm vibes into the rhythm. It was a breeze playing bass on this one! 

 

 

In additional support of this single Daniel Clement also created another animated video to accompany it. The story of the video takes place in the 30's or 40's. Isabelle's character has an Amelia Earhart vibe to her; off in Asia working her fashion and sampling the cultures. She takes control of her destiny and manages to make it back in time to play a show at Lana Lou's. Big shout out to Dan for taking the initiative to write, create, edit and somehow (even if slightly altered from our actual likenesses) make us appear in the video.

 

And finally a big hug of thanks to Robert Edmonds. Yet again, I asked for a cover and he quickly came back with this brilliant summer-blue cover that catches the eye even when reduced to a thumbnail on your streaming site of choice (We recommend Tidal as an option).

Thanks for reading, I hope you'll help us out with a listen, a subscribe, a like or even a comment! 

Mark Henning